Joost Nico Kok is Scientific Director of the Leiden Insitute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS) at Leiden University. He has previously held positions at Utrecht University and Abo Akademie University in Turku, Finland.

His research is concentrated around the themes (scientific) data and model management, data mining, bioinformatics and algorithms.

Since May 1995 he is Full Professor in Fundamental Computer Science at Leiden University and since May 2005 he is also Full Professor in Medicine at the same university.

He has supervised 35 PhD theses, published over 170 articles, and is currently involved with twelve different projects.